<p>Are there other ways for a writer to distinguish himself if he cannot be "editor" of the newspaper or yearbook?</p>
<p>college essays, writing awards, supplementary writing sample</p>
<p>Literary magazine, writing-oriented summer program(s), recommendation from an English teacher, getting published</p>
<p>The cool thing about writing is that if you're good at it, it's likely to show up in your essays (what other talent has a clear place on the app to showcase themselves?). </p>
<p>You can also enter contests and see if you can't get some recognition for your writing. I don't know why type of writing you're into, but some good contests are:
Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA) (seniors only)
Princeton poetry contest
WashU poetry/short story contest (nemerov awards? i think that's what it's called)
Kenyon Review poetry contest
Ayn Rand essay contest
etc
etc</p>
<p>In terms of major writing awards, the best you can go for are Davidson (considered one of if not the biggest), NCTE, and, as vegangirl mentioned, Scholastic and NFAA. There are also a lot of great national/regional essay competitions which are always worth a shot.</p>
<p>major writing awards are great, but I don't think they're very necessary to show a passion for writing. getting published in even the smallest literary magazine outside of your school really shows that you're willing to send out your work and have it critiqued, and, once it's published, shows that other people think it has merit. writers who can't deal with the stress of being published/rejected really will never survive in the "real world" of writing, so sending your work out definitely shows a higher maturity level</p>